


Someone Else's Story

by tansypool



Category: Chilling Adventures of Sabrina (TV 2018)
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Angst, Family Feels, Gen, Implied/Referenced Sexual Assault, Recovery, Smoking, somebody please get zelda some therapy because her coping mechanisms kinda suck
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-22
Updated: 2019-04-22
Packaged: 2020-01-24 01:36:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,373
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18561277
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tansypool/pseuds/tansypool
Summary: Zelda tries to deal with the events of her marriage in the aftermath of a near-apocalypse.





	Someone Else's Story

**Author's Note:**

> It doesn't pay to think too hard about what exactly happens to a person when they're put under a spell that controls their every move when they're on their honeymoon, but turns out it'll produce a fanfic that hurts to write.
> 
> Thank you to Kate and Blue for all your support and proofreading!

The looming threat of the apocalypse had been enough to distract her momentarily, to preoccupy her with impending disaster – the memories only truly come to haunt her in the silence after the gates of Hell have closed, the smoke from the flames within still dissipating into nothing.

Though the changes left by the near-apocalypse aren’t as drastic as they could have been, but there is still a gap left by them. Ambrose’s room is locked, as he vanishes into the night alongside Prudence Blackwood to chase after her father, armed with more weapons than Zelda strictly feels comfortable watching them carry.

The thought of Faustus makes Zelda feel faintly ill, the first time he comes to mind after everything happens. He, too, had vanished into the night, spiriting away his poor children, dooming them to be raised in a crude parody of the faith they had been born into.

But she won’t admit that she is utterly relieved to see him gone, no matter how afraid she is of what may still happen.

The sensation of being completely trapped, unable to control herself, unable to escape, unable to even slip away into the bliss of ignorance – it echoes through her mind in every second of every day, because he had felt the need to control her. She can’t pretend that it was easy, or that she’s come away from it without repercussions – there’s no sense telling a lie that her family will see straight through.

But if she repeats it to herself, cold and clinical, she can distance herself, make it seem like someone else’s story, a role suffered by someone for whom she was nothing but a witness.

The more she repeats the story, distant and emotionless, the more she can make it go away.

Or so she tells herself. Or so she tries to pretend.

\---

The lingering fear and dread creeps back in the early hours of the aftermath. Nothing to truly distract her – only the looming days of waiting for news, waiting for change, as well as the occasional funeral, and figuring out how they’ll manage those without Ambrose.

The Caligari spell is long broken, but its effects still linger, and she can’t make them stop. She’d always thought herself a fighter, and hates to feel herself freeze, waiting for the moment and its horrors to pass. Once upon a time, she swears that she would have fought back – against the spell, against the intruding memories – but now she can’t even bring herself to do that.

Somnambulance was always something that happened to other people. Witches too weak-willed to resist, or warlocks easily manipulated even before the spell was cast. And everything else that happened while she was under the spell – well, that only happened to other people, too. Some of the memories, she spins into stories in the hope that stories is all they will be, but others, she can’t bring herself to even put into words.

But she still can’t separate herself from the memories, and no amount of spinning them around in her mind can make them go away. Ignoring them just makes them pierce through, in too much detail, the feel of fingers digging into her skin, the sensation of being unable to escape as her body betrays her.

Still, she can pretend that she’s doing better than she is. It’s not as though she hasn’t lived a lie before – she’d once begun to feign an accent, to distance herself from that particular part of her past, and kept up the facade for so long that she can no longer recall the accent that was once her own. She can make herself live a lie again, until it becomes the only thing she knows.

But for the first time in her life, she finds herself dreading the night, and it makes her acutely aware of how much has actually changed. With Faustus nearby, and the threat of him using their marriage for his own means being so close it was suffocating, it had been hard enough to hold her head high; with the new distance, it is worse in its own way, with no way to know when or how he will strike next, no way to anticipate his next move. When he was still at the Academy, he was watched with every move; now, Zelda finds herself constantly glancing over her shoulder, even though she knows that he wouldn’t come back without any fanfare.

She had initially thought that the fear during the day was manageable, but in the darkness and the quiet, there is no way to deflect the memories that come back to her, relentless. Every little thing that happened, everything that she did wrong, everything that she could have done differently to avoid it all. In the darkness, there is no way to force them away – they close in on her, the distance she had struggled to forge dissolving.

So she seeks distractions, in any way she can, hoping vainly that one of them might work, enough to allow her that moment of peace. She’s been meaning to learn Portuguese, but she can’t focus on the words on the page – she can’t bring herself to read, either. But even the vain struggle is better than nothing, and better than trying to sleep, until her mind wanders.

She can’t bring herself to step over the threshold of her bedroom, can’t fathom the vulnerability of sleep. Her few attempts at rest had been stolen in whatever corner of the house she felt safe in – in armchairs, pulled against a wall, facing every entrance to the room, ready to move at the slightest disturbance. So she doesn’t rest at all, and she tells herself it’s fine. Witches don’t need to sleep as much as mortals do, and they have ways around it – never mind that those ways are only ever meant to be temporary, emergency measures. That’s something she’ll deal with if the time comes.

Instead, on the first night of peace, she feigns being more awake than she is as she bids goodnight to Hilda and Sabrina. And then, she stays awake, with the first bottle of pinot noir that she could find.

She doesn’t quite let herself savour the wine – it isn’t a particularly good one, but it serves its purpose, and her head soon begins to fill with a not-unpleasant fog. It isn’t enough to make the memories stop, but it is enough to dull the ache.

Before she notices, the bottle is empty, and the ashtray next it quite full. She kicks her shoes off under the couch – she’d quite forgotten she was wearing them – before wandering to the cabinet of stronger liquors mostly belonging to Ambrose.

He’s off dealing with Faustus in his own way, and she’s dealing with Faustus’ actions in hers. Ambrose will understand, if he notices the missing liquor at all.

It has never been her preference, but Zelda doesn’t mind whiskey, and though the fog in her head is thick, it isn’t quite thick enough. After the first burn of it against her tongue, she can barely taste it.

She sits back down with a full glass and a fresh cigarette, silently working her way through both until she feels her eyelids slipping shut, and she curls into the couch, hoping the blossoming dizziness is enough to keep anything else out of her mind.

\---

She wakes up with a stiff neck and a stiffer headache, still wearing the clothes she’d put on the morning prior – and as much as she prides herself on her appearance, she doesn’t particularly like sleeping in a pencil skirt and stockings.

She sits up slowly, wincing at the pain in her spine, moving warily. Her head throbs, and the whiskey and wine are making her nauseous, but she tries not to give it away – it barely registers as a lie at all, compared to everything else she’s living with.

It’s only then that she notices Hilda hovering, looking worried, saying nothing.

“I must have dozed off,” Zelda says, slowly rolling her head from side to side, trying to get at least some of the pain out of her neck.

“You did, it’s morning.” Hilda barely speaks above a whisper, as though trying not to shatter the last peace of the dawn. She doesn’t say anything else, but she purses her lips as she glances at the signs of the night before, while Zelda pointedly ignores them, as well as Hilda’s expression.

Hilda’s silence continues for the brief moment before she walks away, and Zelda doesn’t look to see where she has gone, instead closing her eyes, breathing deeply, and willing the nausea to subside.

She can’t stay like that for long – a moment later, Hilda is beside her again, holding an espresso, which she passes to Zelda as soon as she opens her eyes.

“If you’re having trouble sleeping, I can do something for that.” Hilda’s voice is soft, concerned. But Zelda can’t bring herself to say anything – she can’t give up the little control she still feels like she has.

“I’m fine,” she murmurs, but Hilda doesn’t look like she believes her.

\---

Zelda makes it through most of the day feigning normality, trying to slip into some sort of routine. There’s a church to rebuild, there’s a school to support, there’s so much that should be taking her focus.

But it doesn’t. She tries to concentrate, but it doesn’t quite work, not well enough. All she wants to do is pretend that she’s merely overwhelmed by everything that needs doing, rather than unable to force herself to even begin. That particular pretence can at least be understood, and be spoken about.

It’s mid afternoon when she and Hilda seemingly share the thought of lunch. Hilda has always been the better cook – ever since they were young, she thrived at it, whereas Zelda was neither good at it nor enthusiastic about it. But for once, Zelda almost wants the distracting monotony of it, of peeling and chopping vegetables, and dealing with the mess Hilda always makes. Unlike everything else, it’s work with an immediate result, and any mistakes made will be easily fixed.

They work in an easy peace, Hilda fluttering around with various pans, and Zelda working through a pile of carrots and celery. It’s as involved as she’d rather get in the kitchen, but she has always enjoyed watching Hilda being so clearly in her element. Not that she’d ever admit it.

And then there’s a brush of something against her back, a hand against her, and she stiffens, her breath stills, her knuckles white against the knife handle, trying not to drop it, or accidentally cut herself with the shock, though she isn’t sure she could even move from the position she finds herself frozen in. She can feel herself bracing – for an order, for a strike against her, for something that makes nausea rush through her. The fear and the horror all wash through her at once, stretching the split second into an eternity.

It’s her sister’s voice that pulls her out of it – a soft “Zelds?” and concern across her face, hesitant to move, desperately trying to make eye contact.

She’s fine, she has to tell herself. She’s home. It was just Hilda, doing what she always does, a hand to the back when she’s moving past in their slightly-too-small kitchen, something she’s done for as long as Zelda can recall. Something reassuring, almost comforting, until it wasn’t, until all it makes her think of is another hand against her back, and everything that came with it.

She tries to keep her tone cool, tries not to betray the lump in her throat that she’s trying to speak around. “You just startled me a little.”

Hilda doesn’t jump to a half-hearted apology, or brush it off as nothing, and Zelda hates that she’s so easily read. “Go sit down – I’ll look after that – I’ll bring you a cup of tea.” Hilda is jumping from thought to thought, and Zelda can feel the gentle brush of their fingers together as Hilda tries to take the knife from her.

It still sets off every nerve in her body, and she flinches away from the touch, belatedly grateful that she didn’t drop the knife without realising.

She can’t quite make herself leave the room, so she pulls out a kitchen chair with shaking hands, tries to even out her breath, watches the blood slowly return to her still-too-white hands as she unclenches her fists.

There’s a gentle _clink_ of china against wood as Hilda places a cup of tea in front of her, avoiding even passing it to her, avoiding even the slightest contact.

\---

No matter what she does, she can't seem to feel clean, countless days and countless baths away from even being near Faustus, and she can’t help but need to try and try again.

She tries to wash the feeling away, as futile as it seems. Candles around the bathtub, a glass of wine – despite how poorly it worked the evening prior – and calling it an opportunity to relax to anybody who would listen.

Not that Hilda or Sabrina ask. Zelda knows their looks of concern are meant to go unseen, shared glances and whispered conversations that stop as soon as she enters the room. She’d already noticed them, and it only seems to have gotten worse after the incident in the kitchen, just another event in the long list of things she doesn’t want to think about.

They seem to think they’re being subtle about it. They really aren’t. But she can’t bring herself to talk about it, so she pretends she hasn’t seen anything.

Instead, she sets about to scrub the feelings away, with scalding hot water scented with lemongrass, and a sponge coarser than she would have used, once upon a time, back when there weren’t memories she felt the need to erase.

Her skin burns red with the heat, and prickles with being rubbed raw. She doesn’t stop – maybe the next time will wash the feeling away, or the next, or the next, but it doesn’t. The water stays just that touch too hot without her having to concentrate, and she focuses on the repetition instead.

She still doesn’t feel clean, but she needs to work on every inch of her body, every part exposed, everywhere that she can still feel Faustus’ touch. She lets herself slide into the water, ostensibly to wash her hair, but she lingers, with the water burning at her face, and she stays there until she physically cannot, the burn of water at the back of her nose a sharp reminder that she needs to breathe.

She jolts upright, spitting water out and feeling it run out of her nose, and manages to snuff a few candles out with splashed water. The water is suddenly freezing around her – the spell maintaining its heat broken with the splashes.

Her skin still burns despite the sudden cold, and it still burns as she climbs out of the bath, as she wraps herself in a towel and desperately tries to warm her suddenly frozen core.

She spends the rest of the evening feeling wine and cigarettes burn against the raw spot at the back of her throat, and her hair dripping against the silk of her nightgown. But at least the pain and the chill are something to feel that aren’t the disgust and the fear that she could not wash away.

\---

She tries to fall asleep in her own bed – once is an accident, but twice is the beginning of a poor habit that she doesn’t want to explain. Instead, she stares at the ceiling, trying to focus on the patterns painted on it, keeping her breathing low and even, until she gives up, after a number of hours she doesn’t quite want to know.

Out of bed, finding a robe, finding a candle and lighting it – it feels like she’s admitting defeat, but it’s better that than lying there senselessly until the dawn. She doesn’t realise how much her pulse had been racing, alone in her room, until she feels it slowing as she walks into the hallway.

She wanders the house, keeping her footsteps as silent as she can, easing the doors back into their latches for fear of the sound disturbing someone. But as she reaches the front door, she can’t quite close herself out – there’s a small comfort in the ease of a hasty escape into her home, and she relishes it.

There are tins of cigarettes scattered throughout the house. She knows she’s the only one here who smokes them, and they never shift; she finds one by the door, and takes it with her.

She’s only on her third cigarette when she hears the door creak behind her, and a soft, “Aunt Zee?”

The open door had been enough to lure Sabrina out to join her. She knows that Sabrina hasn’t been sleeping properly, either – Zelda often hears her, and her soft footsteps, well into the night. But she always stops, eventually, and she is always asleep when Zelda checks on her.

Not tonight, it seems.

Sabrina is fidgeting, drumming her fingers against her arms, which are folded in against her chest. Even in the dim moonlight, Zelda can see that her niece’s nails have half been bitten down to ragged stumps, a habit she had broken as a young child.

Zelda has never known a Spellman who didn’t do the same when they were worried.

“Ms. Wardwell is back. It’s actually her. I don’t know if she knows yet. About anything, really. I’ve barely even seen her…” Sabrina’s voice trails off, and she takes a deep breath before continuing. “I feel like I should say something but I don’t know how. I mean, she’s been dead for six months, and now she isn’t, how do you even deal with that?”

That wasn’t what Zelda had expected to be consuming Sabrina quite so much. She somehow doubts that it’s everything. But some things are harder to articulate.

She inhales deeply on her cigarette, for far longer than normal, in the hope that she isn’t expected to respond – she doesn’t know how, not anymore. At least Sabrina doesn’t keep talking, masking her unsureness with blathering; she instead sits next to Zelda, pulling her knees to her chest, and resting her cheek on them. She watches Zelda, as though waiting for an answer.

Finally, Zelda musters, “If she needs help, she’ll find it.”

She won’t, but Sabrina will meddle anyway, and Satan— Lucifer— _Lilith_ knows she doesn’t need the encouragement.

In their uneasy silence, there is a movement out of the corner of her eye, and Zelda sees Sabrina slowly reaching for the cigarettes – far too hesitant to be a hidden habit, but with the quiet desperation of someone needing a distraction, any distraction.

“Don’t,” she growls, and out of the corner of her eye, she sees Sabrina wordlessly placing the box back down, eyes wide with guilt. “It’s a filthy habit.” She takes a long drag of her cigarette, watches the smoke swirl against the moonlight as she speaks. “It won’t help anything.”

Sabrina doesn’t protest – she doesn’t even give Zelda the look she half-expected, the inevitable wordless accusation of hypocrisy.

And then, Sabrina leans in to hug her, before she pulls back at the last second, her eyes wide. She inches away, keeping her hands firmly in her lap, as though restraining herself.

Hilda must have said something about that, then.

Instead, she sits in silence, holding her hands in her lap, pushing at her cuticles with what’s left of her nails to keep her hands from growing still.

They keep their silence until Zelda stubs out her cigarette. She can’t quite bring herself to light another one, not with Sabrina still next to her, but Sabrina seems to take it as a cue. She glances briefly at the moon, before saying, “Night, Aunt Zee,” and pushing herself from the porch step, smooth and silent, before making her way inside.

“Goodnight, Sabrina,” Zelda replies, not glancing around to watch her go.

At the sound of the door in the latch, she reaches for the tin of cigarettes, and silently works through it as she waits for the dawn.

\---

It’s well past the witching hour, and Zelda has nothing to distract her from her own thoughts. Nothing all day has worked, memories swirling since before dawn – her old, familiar routine just lets her mind wander too much, no matter how much she tries to stop it, and no matter how much she pretends that it is working. She hasn’t slept in days, and it feels like she’s almost forgotten how to.

Still, she can’t bring herself to go to bed – even in her own home, with Hilda’s snoring audible through the slightly-open door, and Sabrina wandering the house well past midnight, the comforting familiarities of home. She can’t face that emptiness, the nothingness of night, the way her body becomes rigid when she thinks she hears a noise that shouldn’t be there. But she can’t face the silence of a locked door, either. She can’t bear to be alone with the memories.

She can’t make herself relax – as soon as she feels herself slow down, the lack of control sets her on edge, and her pulse catapults her awake. She’s not sure she wants to try alcohol again, as the sleep it had given her had left her feeling worse. But she’s been awake for too long.

She shouldn’t be so tired. This should be something she can cope with. When she was younger, she could go for days without sleeping without any ill effects, and she finds it hard to cope with the fact that she can’t any more.

She doesn’t want to admit that it might be an effect of something besides age and alcohol.

There are black spots on the edge of her vision, but if she closes her eyes, she can’t control where her mind goes. So she busies her hands with making tea – the ritual of loose leaf tea in a pot, of fine bone china and boiling water on the stove, should set her at ease. But even as she tries to forget, her muscles can’t let go of a habit too quickly engrained, and it’s the taste of too much sugar that brings her back to reality, and the flashes in her head of sugar, sugar, sugar, and Faustus controlling her in every way he could, what she drank and what she did and what he did to her, and she spits it out, but the taste still lingers.

She pours it down the sink. Drinks cold water, swirls it in her mouth, tries to make the taste go away, spitting the water out, spitting until she all she can taste is bile, and she can’t taste the sugar any more.

She leans over the sink, her head spinning – with horror, or exhaustion, she can’t quite tell any more. But it just makes her neck hurt, a remnant of pain from sleeping on the couch, despite how long ago it was. And she still feels ill – but when she thinks about it, she realises she can’t remember the last time she didn’t.

Straightening her back, she reaches for the glass of water again, but she can’t stop her hand from shaking, and when she tries to put it back down, it lands against the edge of the bench, and crashes to the ground.

She can’t do this.

She can’t sleep, she can’t function during the day, she can’t even pour herself a glass of water without making a mess of it.

She’d lost control of herself, and now she feels like she never got it back.

And she can’t bring herself to move – her legs buckle underneath her, and she slides down with her back flat against the cupboard. She huddles with her knees against her chest, and buries her face in her hands, trying to force herself not to sob.

She is so rarely one to let herself cry, but things have changed recently, so she lets herself give in, and she can’t make herself stop.

\---

“Zelds?”

Zelda opens her eyes to see Hilda in front of her – kneeling, holding a mug with steam and smoke swirling above it. The room is illuminated by soft moonlight and a candle by Hilda’s side. They both still carry them, when they wake in the middle of the night – a comfort of centuries that electric lights just can’t quite compete with.

She doesn't know how long she's been sitting there for, still hunched in the same position as she'd sat down in, and her neck protests as she tries to straighten her back, just enough to look Hilda in the eye. She just hopes that it isn't evident how much she has been crying - but judging by her sister's expression, it is. She can feel the tear tracks against her cheeks, and she wouldn’t be surprised to find that her mascara has run down her face. And she feels utterly empty, the little energy she had long since spent.

But Hilda knows her too well to mention it. “I know when you’re having trouble sleeping, even if you don’t want to tell me.” She holds up the mug, close enough for Zelda to reach for it, but no further. “You don’t have to drink it if you don’t want, but it’ll help, I promise. And you won’t dream.”

Zelda can smell the valerian before she tastes it, but it’s cut with lavender and honey and herbs she can barely tell apart awake, let alone in her current state. She can’t remember the last time she had a sleeping draught – she can’t remember the last time she would have admitted to needing one.

Hilda watches her drink, and speaks softly, not leaving a gap for which Zelda would have no words. “Sabrina and I laid a lot of protections around the house when you came home. Ambrose did too, before he left. And I’ve checked them all – if anybody unwanted sets foot over the boundary, we’ll be finished with them before they know what’s happening.” A smile tugs at the corner of her lips before she catches herself. “I check them every night before I go to bed, and I know Sabrina does too. Even if you don’t feel it just now, you’re always safe here.”

Zelda finds herself staring at her hands while her sister speaks, her mind drifting to the mug she’s still holding.

It's a fairly plain white mug, in thick ceramic, with a painting of a little blonde girl holding her aunt’s hand on the side. There’s a chip on the rim, where it was knocked by overenthusiastic small hands trying their best to wash it. Zelda had made sure it wouldn’t break any further, but she could never bring herself to fix it completely.

She supposes that she may have needed the reminder of what she still has.

Hilda keeps her voice low, and soft, and calm. Once upon a time, she never would have admitted it, but Zelda does take a certain comfort in the sound of her sister’s voice, and it has never rung more true than it does as they sit on their kitchen floor in the candlelight, surrounded by broken glass. And then she asks, “When did you last sleep?”

Zelda tries to think, and blurts it out before she has a chance to reign it back. “The other night, on the couch.” She’s fairly sure it was only a couple of nights ago at most, but the days are all starting to blur.

“When did you last sleep properly?”

That she knows, almost exactly to the day – long before the wedding, the night before the woman had read her tarot cards. Not that she particularly wants to admit it. The potential of one reality had been bad enough, but the reality that had ensued had been too much to bear.

Hilda doesn't need her to admit it. “It's been a while,” her sister says, in the same second that Zelda thinks it.

Zelda just nods – and feels something shift, deep inside her, as she looks up to see it sink in in Hilda’s eyes.

“I know you don’t want to talk about what happened, and, well, I don’t expect you to. But if you need to…” Hilda’s voice trails off, and Zelda can’t quite say anything in return, but she nods, ever so slightly, just enough to show that she’s listening.

She’s almost glad she doesn’t have to say it. Repeating everything to herself had not made it feel less real, but repeating it to someone else will only make it all too much. And she doesn’t want that. Not now.

She finishes the last of the draught, and the taste of lavender and honey lingers in her mouth as she drops her head back against the cabinet, just for a moment.

“Let’s get you to bed before your spine stays like that.” A smile tugs at the corners of Hilda’s lips, and she reaches forward to take Zelda’s hand, but stops herself. Instead, she reaches for the now-empty mug, and waits for Zelda to pass it to her.

Zelda reaches for the floor, to push herself up, but stops herself as Hilda says, “Mind your hands, my love.” There’s still glass everywhere. Seeing the look in Zelda’s eyes, she continues, “Don’t worry, I’ll look after it, once we’ve got you in bed.”

Hilda is still kneeling in front of her, looking as though she’s holding back from offering her hand to help her up. Zelda can’t bring herself to reach forward, to close that distance. But, for the first time since it all happened, she at least feels like she might be able to, one day.

Instead, she warily avoids the glass fragments covering the floor, and slowly eases herself up, expecting far more stiffness in her limbs than she feels. Her head doesn’t quite spin as she stands, and the black spots in her vision are gone; instead, all she can feel is a welcome, numbing exhaustion.

Between that overwhelming exhaustion and the sleeping draught, she barely notices as she follows Hilda down the hallway, and that brief lack of control sends a shudder through her. She stops, and Hilda stops to wait for her.

She’s still in control of herself.

She focuses on each footstep and can feel herself growing calmer again as she follows Hilda towards her bedroom, and she takes a deep breath before stepping through the door. And she’s in, and nothing happens.

Hilda’s old bed is still there, as is her own, barely used in longer than she’d like. Hilda stays, watching her intently, as though waiting for something to happen, before she starts speaking, still soft and low and calm.

“If you don’t want me to stay, I don’t have to – I just thought, well, if it’ll help, I will. There’s still a bed in the other room, so I can go, or you can go if that’ll be better, or I can wait ‘til the sleeping draught starts working properly.” She folds her arms, as though fighting to keep them close to her, and taps her thumbnail against her teeth.

Zelda nearly spits out an all-too-defensive _I’ll be fine_ , before she catches herself at the last second. Hilda would see straight through it. Instead, she pauses, lets herself think for a moment, before saying, “Go to bed, you don’t need to stay.” She can’t quite put her thankfulness into words, and she hopes it carries in her tone.

Hilda nods, clearly having heard what Zelda couldn’t say. “Night, Zelds,” she says, before leaving Zelda alone, with the door slightly ajar behind her.

Zelda changes into the first nightgown she lays a hand on, and leaves the clothes she was wearing where they landed. She’s never been one to make such a mess, but she’s too tired to care, and she can deal with it later. There’s nobody else to tell her otherwise.

Within minutes, she falls asleep, and she doesn’t dream.


End file.
